Review of Utawarerumono
| Subject | Utawarerumono Utawarerumono - DVD Edition |
| By | Helpfulness: 0 eriely on 2022-05-20 |
| Review | Utawarerumono is a “God game” in the Western sense of the term. You guide a village of Ainu inspired kemonomimi along the steps of human civilizations. You teach them to feed themselves with agriculture, defend themselves from the local wildlife, build an empire, and challenge the gods. In a story ripe with twists and genre shifts, the greatest one is that you do not realize that you are playing a God game until the end is reached and you are left to ponder what remains. This is possible because the story is deeply personal, obscuring the epic nature of the events that unfold. Our protagonist awakes next to Eruruu, a girl with animal ears and a tail. He has no memories. While he himself does not have these animal features, he does have on a strange mask, permanently attached to his face. Given the name Hakuoro, after the late son of the village head Tuskuru, he quickly finds his place in the village as a leader and father figure, guiding his people's growth technologically and militaristically. Historical milestones are framed as challenges that Hakuoro, Eruruu, and the family they built have to overcome, as the village becomes a country, which unwillingly becomes an empire. Lurking beneath the narrative of Utawarerumono is the concept of mono no aware, the understanding that all things in this world are impermanent. We are reminded of this not only in moments of loss, but also in the fleeting moments of happiness. This bittersweet emotion adds a depth that to the experience that makes it very human. After all, we all suffer from loss from the moment we are born. It is often the case that scale alone is enough to make you think something is truly great. Utawarerumono certainly has scale. But the epic is also intensely personal, engaging with the full range of human experience. When Leaf added the subtitle “Chiriyuku mono e no komoriuta” in the ps2 release of Utawarerumono, it may have been because even the creators did not realize what they had made the first time around. They may have needed to put into words what this game meant to them. To me, Utawarerumono is so many things. Character drama, historical fantasy, science fiction, kamige. |
| 0 points |